Thousands Of EU Citizens In UK Risk Missing Settlement Status Deadline - Campaigners

LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th June, 2021) Thousands of European Union citizens who decided to remain in the United Kingdom after Brexit risk missing the government's June 30 deadline to apply for a settlement status, members of the UK in a Changing Europe academic campaign group warned on Wednesday.

"We don't know how many people haven't applied but even if just one percent of the EU population (in the UK) that should had applied haven't, we're talking about 50,000 individuals," the group's deputy director Catherine Barnard told reporters in an online briefing organized by the London Foreign Press Association.

According to Barnard, among those who might miss the deadline in two weeks are vulnerable and older people, homeless and rough sleepers, as well as a "significant number" of young people who have not applied for different reasons, including fear of interaction with the state.

Under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement signed between London and Brussels, EU citizens already living in the UK and vice versa have until June 30 to apply for permanent residence, otherwise they will lose their rights to work, rent a home or receive health care.

Barnard said that another concern is that since the vast majority of applications have been done electronically, people do not have a physical form to prove that they have applied or already been granted the status.

"The quid pro quo with this electronic scheme is that you don't get paper proof that you have got such status, and this is one of the things that have caused most upset to those who apply, because they don't have a document to show around to employers, landlords," she said.

Jonathan Portes, a senior fellow at the UK in a Changing Europe, said that according to their estimates, 5.6 million applications have already been filed.

"We have a huge number of people who have effectively been given indefinitely leave to remain or are likely to get it within the next few years, and that's is going to shape our society for decades to come just as in the 1950's and 1960's the people from the Caribbean and South Asia shaped our country, our politics, our culture," he said.

According to the UK Home Office, up to April 30, around 5.4 million EU nationals had applied for residence in the UK under the post Brexit settlement scheme. So far, 97% of the applicants were offered settled or pre-settled status, only 1% was refused and the remaining applications were either withdrawn or declared invalid.